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16 Yale J.L. &. Feminism 193 (2004)
When Daddy Doesn't Want to Be Daddy Anymore: An Argument against Paternity Fraud Claims

handle is hein.journals/yjfem16 and id is 199 raw text is: When Daddy Doesn't Want to Be Daddy Anymore: An Argument Against Paternity Fraud Claims Melanie B. Jacobst INTRODUCTION For wrongly convicted felons, improved DNA testing has increasingly provided the means by which innocence is proved and freedom from incarceration secured. A recent study of 328 criminal cases and subsequent exonerations over the past fifteen years found that DNA evidence contributed to 145 of those exonerations, and, moreover, that DNA evidence helped free inmates in 88 percent of the rape cases in the study.' Former Governor Ryan of Illinois made national headlines when he commuted the death penalty sentences of 167 inmates because new evidence revealed that many on death row were 2 innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. DNA testing has applicability well beyond criminal law, however. Improved genetic testing3 is changing how we define traditional families. While res judicata and estoppel principles have long been used to preserve the unitary, nuclear family, some states are moving away from these doctrines in favor of biological paternal certainty.4 Thus, if a man is not the biological father of a child-and was either uncertain or unaware of this biological fact-he may petition to disestablish Assistant Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law. Many thanks to David Favre, Theresa Glennon, Jane Murphy, and Nancy Knauer for their thoughtful suggestions. 1. Adam Liptak, Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 19, 2004, at A15. 2. See, e.g., CBS News, Ryan Clearing Illinois Death Row tJan. 11, 2003), at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/30/national/main534639.shtml. 3. See Theresa Glennon, Somebody's Child: Evaluating the Erosion of the Marital Presumption of Paternity, 102 W. VA. L. REv. 547, 555-56 (2000) (explaining that by the 1980s, DNA or genetic marker testing provided probabilities of paternity greater than 99%); see also D. KELLY WEISBERG & SUSAN FRELICH APPLETON, MODERN FAMILY LAw 510 (2d ed. 2002) (describing both human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and modem genetic marker testing and their respective accuracy in establishing percentage probability of biological paternity). 4. See infra Part IV. Copyright ( 2004 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism

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